Prime
by martinique
Summary: Kakashi's depressed, Sasuke's angry. Kakashi struggles with himself and memories. Sasuke's searching for Itachi. KakashiSasuke


**Title: Prime  
_Pairing(s): Kakashi/Sasuke  
Warning(s): Character death x 2  
Genre(s):Angst  
Rating: PG-15, or whatever we use these days.  
Word Length: 2100  
Description: Kakashi's depressed, Sasuke's angry. _**

**Prime**

Kakashi feels his years the day Naruto dies, Sakura becomes Hokage, and Tsunade absconds to drink and gambling. They tell him that it was his seal. His seal was breaking, fluctuating, wavering. And there was no one there to bring him back. He almost believes the words, as if the delicate porcelain masks could only speak the truth. Like the day they told him _Rin _ had died. Still young enough for it to hurt. He thought – finally, finally he understood how Yondaime must have felt hearing the news.

Somewhere in the back the sound of dull rushing past the ears, and perhaps that's the sound of his voice trapped in his lungs, screaming, a ghost noise that will never echo off the walls, only his mind.

**xxx  
**

It hits autumn before Kakashi returns to reality. There's a dull throbbing in his mind, and he suddenly can't remember what it is he's trying to numb down. And he hopes he's done it the right way around this time. The wind is unrelenting against his windows, whipping leaves, a handful in every gust from the trees, ripping with it the seeds growing. Out of the many, only a few will flower, only a few will grow into trees. Autumn depresses him. Reminds him that winter is coming, reminds him of the days spent huddling in trenches, his new eye twitching. Kakashi swallows heavily, reaches for the glass of water perched precariously on the table littered with his preferred reading material, and finds that his hand shakes. He hardly knows he's born and living.

** xxx **

He retires from active duty. His generation has all the perks of veteran payments, bitterly struggled for in council sessions by the village against the very country they protect. He turns down the offers of a desk-job. Or a job masquerading as a desk-job, involving instead the _gentle _ interrogation of caught subjects. Conventions may exist, but there's no such thing as a _fair _ war. Not where children are allowed to fight. Not for the first time, a heavy sigh escapes Kakashi. He barely hears his voice these days. Even expletives come slowly, swallowed by heavy thoughts that threaten to bring him down. Memory is inescapable and eventually returns. Like a thorn it pricks at his mind, and in the centre, he can see only the youthful expression of Sasuke. He curses the village for the thought that one out of three isn't too bad. And curses the Uchiha family for its dysfunctions that seem to have been transferred to him. His eye itches consistently these days, under the hitai-ete. There are some habits he can't quite shake off.

** xxx **

His breath is white against the air, and the earth around him is quiet. There's a sense of delight in the white earth, and he accepts it, mind blank, unpressurised by past failures that weigh heavy on him. He forgets that he sometimes wishes _he_ was the fallen comrade, the failure, or the one driven by a hate that transcends all bonds of love.

** xxx **

Spring beckons fast, and moss covers Naruto's gravestone in a swirling pattern. Kakashi fingers the porcelain disk hanging limp from his belt. Sakura has entrusted him with a particular mission. He wonders why he has accepted. Perhaps because Sakura is no longer his charge, but rather he is hers. Nostalgia is the fuel upon which they thrive, and news of Sasuke's sighting is followed by a flurry of dead bodies hitting the ground. He goes in search of a past that is recalled in the flames of his mind.

Returning to active duty sounds easier than it is. Despite his short absence, Kakashi can tell his brief foray into civilian life has made him soft. He recalls the mantras designed to keep one alive during the Shinobi Wars. He remembers not to rely on his eye. He encounters missing-nin that tell him their secrets in exchange for their lives. Orochimaru, dead, Kabuto, dead, the neo-Sound Five, dead. It reads like a list penned by a murderer, and Kakashi doesn't bother to bet on Sasuke.

** xxx **

Pakkun's surprised look is the only warning he has that he's being trailed. It unnerves him, and he begins to travel towards the nearest life – a little ram-shackle village dependent upon the condescending patronage of passing tourists – when a figure in blazing white descends upon him. The stance is relaxed, an unflinching hand clenches the blade. _Sasuke_. Kakashi keeps his hands at his side and resists the urge to rip the hitai-ete from his head.

** xxx  
**

Sometimes, things don't go to plan. Sasuke tells him to stop trailing him. He's lost all of the youth, the baby-fat that he used to have. He's grown up in the same way that Naruto had, hard muscle and deep voice to match his. An adult, making his own life-choices. It's almost enough to make him admit defeat. Almost. His eye twitches incessantly, and he lifts a hand to remove the hitai-ete. Kakashi witnesses the unconscious tightening of a hand around the handle of the blade, and knows that somewhere Sasuke is still uncertain enough of himself to worry about going up against him. And that's enough to make him sure of himself.

"Are you here to kill me?" he asks, without pretence. Kakashi regards him for a long minute, both eyes assessing.

"No." A short pause. "I'm here to watch you." Sasuke cannot halt the confused expression that forms on his face at his words, and Kakashi takes it as a good sign, he's not beyond reach. Perhaps things would have worked out differently if he had been there when Naruto found Sasuke. Perhaps.

"Watch me?" He asks, unsure. Kakashi merely nods in response. "Why?"

"You can't – and I guess, won't – return to Konoha. Sakura has decided you're not a general threat to the security of Konoha, as your only aim is to kill Itachi, a goal that coincides with our own. He's one of the last Akatsuki left. So I'm here to watch, and ensure you do not die in attaining your goal."

"What if I don't want you to watch." It isn't a question. So Kakashi doesn't answer. Sasuke cocks his head in acceptance, and begins to walk away. Kakashi joins him.

Kakashi soon realizes that Sasuke has already worked out the answers to his main, unasked questions. Sakura is willing to let him attain his life goal. She's covering up his existence and sending Kakashi instead as part of the covert operation. And when he has attained his goal, the only choice will be whether he'll die at Kakashi's hand or his own.

** xxx **

Kakashi feels the brunt of his age in the way Sasuke strides forwards; he finds himself warding off the cold that threatens to numb his fingers. Sasuke seems intent on finding his brother, and Kakashi doesn't ask how he knows where to go. An entire season has passed, and only by marking the days on his belt does he know that it is nearly time for Naruto's death day to come by again. Autumn still depresses him, and the lack of voices feels like the fog from before he'd attempted to escape before Sakura entrusted him with his final task. A woman now, with a regal stature that he would have never imagined when he saw her first all those years ago. He can almost count the decades, and is amused that he can't see them in a mirror for the genetic shock of white hair and the lines hidden by the hitai-ete and face-mask.

** xxx **

Camp, the day of Naruto's death. Huddled around the fire, their daily rations eaten, Sasuke breaks the silence:

"How'd he die?" There's a pretence in the tone that its just idle curiosity rather than regret.

"With dignity." Which is the truth, a lie and an avoidance of both.

"Quit side-stepping." Bristling, and with a certain tone of unexpected anger. Kakashi nods, putting this knowledge away.

"Fine. He died. Anbu killed him, most likely. I never did get the full story. They say he lost control. Possibly. It doesn't matter now. He's dead, and perhaps Root got him. It's telling that Tsunade left. But you know that." Still bitter, perhaps eternally so. It's a lament he can't quite stop himself from making.

** xxx **

Kakashi stands idly by when Sasuke finally tracks down Itachi. He finds himself strangely drawn to the spinning twirl of their eyes as they circle each other, deep into stances that betray the fact that this is a very serious matter. His heart thuds painfully as he watches, a decade too old. This seems far too strange, but then he could never have understood how Itachi could kill his entire clan but for pure evilness. What would Obito say? One out of three, not too bad. And he has two of them left, though by all accounts it may soon be one.

The air runs thick with taunts and malevolent chakra. Kakashi stands back and watches the hate Sasuke has spent his lifetime accumulating spend itself against Itachi's defense in unrelenting force, battering and hammering away, each punch a response to the nightmares endured ever since, each kick punishment for every night spent without the warm smile of their mother, ruthlessly stolen from him. Itachi no longer attempts to taunt him, knowing that Sasuke's anger is tightly focussed, and Kakashi can only think that it is amazing to see what one emotion can drive a person to, one event, so indelibly printed upon the heart of that person that they could never move away from their goal.

** xxx **

The body on his shoulders is heavy, and he shifts it a little to make it a bit more comfortable to carry. It's dark ahead, and he watches his step carefully, heading for the thicket where they will make camp that night. Sasuke nurses his injuries, sharingan spinning wildly out of control, matching the one no longer hidden by the hitai-ete, all-watching.

Entering, he attempts to lower the body gently. It lands with a dull thud, and he winces slightly. He's still wary, as though Itachi could suddenly come back to life. Impossible. He's not an immortal, he was one of the few Akatsuki that remained relatively normal. Sasuke slumps into a sitting position, and Kakashi knows that he'll probably faint if he loses any more blood from the open wound in his leg. He covers Itachi with his own cape, the clouds tainted a dark red.

He hunches down next to Sasuke and performs a general medical jutsu, then smoothes some salve onto it and bandages it with all the spare materials he has left. Sasuke seems almost catatonic, lost in his own world, though he watches his hands with steely-eyed determination. Not now, his eyes say. Another day – just, just to work through the consequences, the results of a life-time sitting opposite him. And Kakashi relents, pulling Sasuke towards his chest in understanding, in _acknowledgement_, pressing a kiss to his hair, ignoring the tears that silently fall, the shaking and mumbling and how very hard Sasuke's clutching at him.

Kakashi thinks that perhaps, perhaps they can earn their way back into Konoha, just like they've earned their way to their departed loved ones upon death.

** Fin.**

**R&R welcome.  
**


End file.
